Robotic correctness is the last thing judges want to see or hear

. .the most crucial ingredient by far for success in music is . . .what happens in the practice room.

If we're not actively making things better, chances are we're making them worse.

Music, the most abstract and uncanny art, is an eternal river of sound moving through time. We can free ourselves from whatever may be holding us back, and join that flowing river.

Mistakes are . . . immensely useful. . . they show us . . . where we are right now and what we need to do next

Music study presents a natural, here-and-now route to selfknowledge and self-integration.

Learning itself is a fulfilling adventure at all points in the process. In fact, psychologists have listed learning as one of the basic, universal joys of human experience.

If you have played "six times wrong, one time right" the problem is not quite corrected.

[perfectionism leads to] a tendency to apologize preemptively for one's efforts, knowing from experience that there's sure to be something wrong with them.

Don't attribute mishaps to a lapse in concentration - if you missed the note you don't know it.

Much music teaching seems more concerned with controlling the student than with encouraging the student's own impulses.

Make love your religion, and all the citadels of man-made religious conflicts shall disappear from the face of earth once and for all.

When you live on the edge of a cursed forest, you do a lot of staring into the dark.

If we don’t confront those things that are wrong, it gets worse.

In fact the experience at Oxford has really helped me later in life.

Joe E. Lewis said, 'Money doesn't buy happiness but it calms the nerves.' And that is how I feel about a film being well-received.

If there is anything material and we're not reporting it, we'll be breaking the law. We don't break the law.

No one can hold absolute power for long, controlled power endures.

Writing is a legitimate way, an important way, to participate in the empowerment of the community that names me.

When I select a topic, it's usually a commitment of two to three years of my life